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Allies for the integrated management of inland water bodies and coasts in Rio de Janeiro

By: Aikaterini Tsakanika

The UNDP World Centre for Sustainable Development
(RIO+ Centre) participated in the V Meeting of the Watershed Committees of the
state of Rio de Janeiro (V ECOB- RJ 2017) in Paraty. This
preparatory meeting was organized ahead of the XIX ENCOB 2017 and the 8th Water Forum in 2018, for the
elaboration of joint approaches and positions on: the interface of the coastal
and water resources management regimes, the seawater intrusion into inland
water bodies and the competencies of the watershed committees in the coastal
management under the Brazilian law.

If we want
to protect our territories, we need to acknowledge their value first!

The idea that
all stakeholders need to know their territory in depth to defend it better was
a consensus among the V ECOB-RJ participants. The RIO+ Centre also defends this
view and employs creative means to highlight the value of the fragile
ecosystems and to motivate local stakeholders to prevent irreversible damage
from pollution and climate change. In this context, the trailer of Ricardo
Gomes’ documentary ‘Urban Bay’,
co-produced with the RIO+ Centre to inform on the value of the resilient and
extraordinary biodiversity of Guanabara Bay, was presented during the first-round
table dedicated to the integration of the water resources and coastal
management.

Integration of water resources and coastal management

The
integration of the multiple uses of water basins and coasts is a
matter of great importance to most hydrographic regions of Rio de Janeiro,
especially in Sepetiba, Ilha Grande and Guanabara bays.In this process of mind-set change, the participants of the first
round-table tracked the reverse path of the plastic and the sewage found at the
coasts of Rio de Janeiro, only to reconfirm the inherent, yet complex, interdependence
of the inland water systems with the coastal and marine ecosystems. They also acknowledged
that an integrated management regime includes
challenging and controversial tasks, such as the
definition of the territorial reference points for the action area of the
watershed committees.

During this
first round-table, Helen Rolim, coordinator of the BIG Project (Projeto BIG in Portuguese)exemplified
good integration practices withthe
managing institutions of the BIG Project,the State Institute for the
Environment (INEA) and the watershed committee that is representing
the Ilha Grande
Basin (CBH-BIG), for incorporating
and promoting the integrated coastal management concept as means to achieve,by 2050, the long-term goal of conservation
and sustainable use of terrestrial and marine biodiverse ecosystems. She
also added that the same scale of analysis for the Coastal Ecological and Economic
Zoning (ZEEC in Portuguese) and the State Water Action
Plans was adopted by defining the coastal sectors as action areas -considering
both the territorial sea and the inland water bodies within the respective
territory.

The national institutional instrument
for land use planning and definition of the marine and territorial band (Projeto
Orla) was also emphasized as means for planning and implementing integrated
management regimes. Yet, workshops that intended to identify demands and provide
technical support at municipal level had little appeal to the watershed
committees that were absent from the dialogue. As it was revealed during the debate
following the panel presentations, the participative processes were abruptly
discontinued when the financial responsibility shifted from the federal government
to the municipalities that did not authorize resourcesoriginally destined for
the watershed committees.

Leaving no one behind

In Brazil,
there is a solid legal basis for the empowerment and citizens’ participation
but it is still necessary to integrate all levels of action by taking advantage of synergies
among representative bodies. Watershed committees being the representative
bodies that best understand the reality of their local territories within the
state can become ideal allies in this process.
Their inputs and participation in policy-making processes need to be
institutionally reinforced and legitimized by securing equal representation of
gender and social groups, especially indigenous people and other traditional
groups that have an intrinsic socio-cultural relation with their surrounding
environment.

In this vein, Eliane
Barbosa and Livia
Soalheiro, representing the Secretary
of Environment in Rio de Janeiro (SEA-RJ), urged the state councils to carry
on their commitments at this moment of conflict and under-representation, and reminded
us the value of the political and social resistance
of the watershed committees despite practical obstacles. Accordingly, the final
resolution of the V ECOB-RJ reinforced the idea that stakeholders
of Rio de Janeiro need to meet on an annual basis to consolidate networks and coordinate
better their work in view of the gradual decline of financial support from the
federal government.